55. Vesper #4
Furniture crashes to the ground as we all move at once, leaping toward each other. I have just enough time to dive out of the way to my left to keep her blade from sinking into my chest. Locke leaps after Polly to stop her. Havoc rolls away, making sure he’s not in the way of any attacks.
“Kill her!” Svetlana shouts. “Kill her!”
I dive for her again, my blade raised, but she’s fast and I haven’t leveled up my Tier yet. I curse myself for not doing it as soon as we got in here, but we’d encountered a problem that needed taken care of. And I’m nothing if not resourceful.
When Locke goes right, I go left, making Polly move to keep away from both of us.
She forgets about Havoc where he stands as still as can be, like a piece of furniture.
He immediately snaps his arms around her and holds.
His powers come flaring to life around him, a golden rope of power that winds around Polly and starts to tighten.
She screeches bloody murder as Svetlana leaps forward and swipes her tibial spines across her chest, drawing a line of blood there. Polly shrieks louder and someone bangs on the door.
“Madam Polly! Are you alright?” BANG. BANG. BANG. “Madam Polly!”
“Madam Polly is totally busy right now,” I hear Stevie answer. “I suggest you, like, leave.”
“The fuck—” The man screams.
Stevie laughs. “I totally warned you, silly goose.”
I grin and straighten as Polly struggles weakly against Havoc’s power.
“You made a mistake,” I say as I stalk closer on feather-light feet.
“You let your hunger get in the way of intelligence.” I lean closer.
“You thought you could have your way with them. You thought you could make me watch as you took what’s mine.
” I grin and press the tip of the blade against her stomach.
“Do it,” Polly snarls. “You whore bitch! When I get out of this, I’m going to collar you and let everyone have you for free.
” She snaps her teeth at me. “Only after you’re broken and used up will I have my automatons rip you to pieces.
And perhaps I’ll collar these two and offer men for the first time. ”
My smile falls as I stare at her. Her pretty blue eyes are filled with violence, and I realize just what she is.
“You left Dross,” I say, the blade still in my hand. “You left that shithole, came here, and decided to create another prison in the place that felt like home.” I lean back and stop touching her with the blade. “What a weak, little woman you are.”
“Too afraid to kill me?” she snarls. “I knew you weren’t as tough as you looked, you little bitch! I’m going to—”
“Oh, I very much want to kill you,” I tell her. I grab Locke’s hand and shove the dagger into his. “But you’re not my kill.”
Polly’s eyes widen. “Bone Breaker, I thought we had something. I can . . . I can give you power here. I can give you power Mother Remainder never did.”
Locke’s expression has remained blank, but with her words, he smiles. He’s still naked as he moves in, the blade wrapped in his hand tightly.
“You see this woman right here?” he rumbles, pointing to me. When Polly refuses to look, he grabs her jaw roughly and forces her to. “She gives me power you never could.” He presses the blade against her stomach. “And I’m going to kill you just like I killed Mother Remainder.”
I jerk and glance at him with wide eyes just before he slides that blade into her stomach and twists.
She gasps and cries out, her eyes going wide.
Locke jerks upwards, cutting her wide open from stomach to chest, slicing through her ribcage with pure strength.
He bares his teeth as her organs begin to spill onto the floor, and she looks down at the sight, blood beginning to run from her lips.
“I hope you rot in the streets with the rest of the corpses,” Locke snarls as he jerks the knife out and stabs in again, blood coating his hand as he burrows it inside her chest. I watch as he rips one of her rib bones free with a crack, and holds it up before her.
He runs his tongue along the bone as she stares at him.
“Your death is delicious,” he purrs, just before she slumps.
Havoc lets his power go and she crashes to the ground, her eyes still wide open in horror.
He reaches for the bracelet on his wrist and rips it off, dropping it on her body.
Locke follows his lead and does the same, and then he walks over to my frozen body.
Carefully, with blood-soaked hands, he reaches for the bracelet on my wrist and yanks it off.
It snaps easily. His hand cups my cheek and tilts my face up away from the body to look him in the eyes.
“Do you see me differently now?” he asks.
My eyes search his. “No.”
His shoulders relax, as if he’d been expecting a different answer. “I’d kiss you right now, but these lips touched hers. I need to scrub the layers off before I press them to yours.”
I blink. “Oh.”
“We releasing the girls, or what?” Havoc asks, crossing his arms. “Now that this little charade is over.”
Locke shoots him a look. “You enjoyed it, Legend. I saw the way you looked at Vesper.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Havoc grunts, turning away.
Svetlana crawls along Polly’s body and laughs. “I saw it, too. He is smitten.”
“Shut up, bug,” Havoc grunts.
“Bug?” Svetlana scoffs. “Bug! HOW DARE YOU CALL ME A BUG, YOU—”
“Svetlana,” I say, leaning down to offer her my arm while Locke pulls on his clothing. “Later. We have to go remove all the collars.”
We spend the next two hours searching out all the women in the Disorderly Hotel.
Locke removes every collar since he’d been the one to kill Madam Polly.
We count fifty-three women. All of them cry when we rescue them from their clients.
The men complain, but when Locke threatens them with death once they leave, they shut up real quick.
We kick out all of the men, and make sure the doors are locked so the women have the time to recuperate without trouble.
“Take what you need from this place,” I tell them. “The food won’t last outside of the safehouse, but the items will.”
“Thank you,” one of the women says, her eyes hollow. We’d pulled her from beneath a table when we’d first come out, and she’d immediately joined in to help us find all of the others. “For everything you’ve done.”
“It was nothing,” I say. “Locke killed her.”
“We all saw you walk in,” she replies. “We all saw the storm around your shoulders, Beast Bound. It may have been by his hand, but you gave him the strength to hold the dagger.”
Frowning, I glance at Locke, who only shrugs. “It’s true,” he says, smiling.
“Bone Breakers are notoriously strong,” Havoc grumbles, rolling his eyes. “There’s no need for frivolous romantic notions of grandeur.”
I raise my brow at him. “Do you have to ruin everything?”
“Yes,” he answers immediately.
Sighing, I move through the room, making sure that everyone is okay before I take a seat at a nearby table and stretch out my legs. The automaton waiters appear from nowhere and immediately sets the table with food that makes my mouth water.
“Your supper, Madam Vesper,” they say.
“Don’t call me that,” I growl.
“My apologies,” the waiter says. “Madam Player.”
And then he stumbles away before I can correct him again.
“Madam Player,” Svetlana says. “It has a nice ring to it.”
“Don’t you dare,” I tell her as she leaps off my shoulder and tears into the plate of food.
“I would never,” Svetlana laughs. She starts slicing at the food with her razor arms and then shoving her face daintily into it, her little mouth nibbling at the meat.
“I am tempted to replace your title,” Cipher pips in.
“I’ll never forgive you. That woman was a terrible person,” I warn.
He sighs. “You are correct. I will refrain from offending you then.”
In the corner of the room, one of the televisions hangs, the screen static right now. The news broadcast hasn’t come in since we’ve been here, so I don’t know exactly what time it’ll pop on. Maybe we missed it in all the chaos.
TIER UPGRADE AVAILABLE
UPGRADE NOW
The notification flashes across my vision again as I open my interface and sigh. “Alright,” I say, selecting the icon. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”